One-Light to Cover them All (page 2)
Collaborating with the Location
When the location has a substantial amount of ambient light, your single unit can cooperate with it, once you've figured out how to do it.
Maybe you just need to pump up the overall fill light by bouncing a light off the ceiling. In this case, a spot with spun glass diffusion is ideal, or you can sometimes use a soft light by removing its frame and fabric and placing the open light source near the ceiling.
More often, though, you'll want to key with your unit and fill with ambient light, or vice versa -- but which way should you go?
That depends on both the light source and its strength. If the light is overhead (often a fluorescent ceiling), it is the fill light by default. In this case, keep your key light fairly low (gelled blue if the fluorescent is daylight balanced, and many today are,) because ceiling lights create raccoon eyes and shadow mustaches. If you want that extra oomph, use a reflector to bounce back fill from the side, leaving the ceiling lights to provide separation and pump up the background. If the location source is window light, decide whether you can place your subject close enough to it to create a key light. If not, use it for soft natural fill and key with your single instrument (again blue gelled). When that unit is a softlight, avoid placing it dead opposite the window.
What to do with Backgrounds
Backgrounds may not be a problem when you have ambient light on location, but when your lonely unit is the sole source, you have to light carefully.
With a spotlight, reposition both light and reflector so that the bounce light hits the rear wall as well as the subject. With a softlight, about all you can do is move the subject closer to the wall, move the light farther from the subject (to hit more of the wall), or a bit of both. Be careful moving the subject closer, it may flatten the look of the shot.
If you have any choice in the matter, always use a light-colored background wall when working without ambient light. That way, the bounce light will have a fighting chance of illuminating your subject.
Another trick is to use a second reflector (assuming your spotlight is hot enough to move back and flood out). Position the second reflector immediately above or beside the first and aim it and the background wall. Works like a treat.
Good lighting!
Contributing Editor Jim Stinson's book Video: Digital Communication and Production is out in a 2nd revised edition.
